Thursday, 11 July 2013

Overground, underground

Despite leaving Paddington a minute late last night, my Bakerloo Line train to Waterloo arrived a minute early, so I had no difficulties catching my intended fast train connection to Hersham. Unfortunately, this connection was delayed by five minutes owing to a 'points failure'. I didn't catch where this was and so, feeling magnanimous, I've decided to give TfL the benefit of the doubt and assume it happened outside of Zones 1-6. No charge, therefore.

This morning's train from Hersham to Waterloo was a minute late (definitely accrued within TfL's area of control), and the connecting tube was three minutes late arriving in Paddington. Plus the two minute Paddington Penalty, of course, making a total of five minutes and £12.50 to add to the tally.

Meanwhile, in the rest of London, a head-on tube collision on the Northern Line was narrowly avoided, and TfL is under pressure to answer the questions 'WTF happened?' and 'How are you going to prevent something like this from happening again?' Labour London Assembly Transport spokeswoman Val Shawcross has praised the actions of 'a' train driver in averting disaster. Presumably, a head-on collision involves two trains, though, so I don't know why the other train driver wasn't also praised, since I imagine he didn't just plough on as the collision wouldn't have been avoided then either...

TfL's also looking into turning some major roads into overground tunnels so that residences and businesses can be built on top of them - space always being at a premium in London. There seem to be no plans to do this anywhere near Wimbledon, however, so mine is the only Wombles joke we'll allow.

Image credit: tidybag.co.uk

Claims for accidents on the London Underground have reached £2.5m in the last four years, according to The Telegraph. Though they don't come outright and say it (or, rather, write it), this seems to be a new record. Obviously, domestic terrorist Bob Crow was quick to point out that if only TfL always gave in to his and his trade union's frequent and outrageous demands, this would never have happened.

And finally, speaking of strikes, Bob Crow's corralled RMT members who work on the Boris Bike scheme to strike too. Is there any one of my readers who cares less than me, I wonder?

Tube Bingo

About Me

I've been meaning to do this for a while. Like all Londoners, I'm sick of the shoddy service the tube gets away with. Starting now, I'm keeping a note of all the time of mine my tube journeys waste. At the end of the year, I'll present TFL with a bill for my professional time, currently meted out at GBP150 per hour.